


Maybe

by Riray (Rititavi)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, Missing Scene, probably OOC because Arthur shows some wisdom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-22 20:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23000239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rititavi/pseuds/Riray
Summary: After the first day as Arthur's servant Merlin decides to get himself sacked.But then he notices Arthur on a walk in the Lower Town.This missing scene takes place between s1e01 and s1e02.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> Something funny happens between the first and second episodes of 'Merlin'. At the end of the first episode, Merlin is obviously revolted by the thought of being Arthur's servant, while at the second episode he already sort of enjoys it and feels the urge to protect Arthur. Now, I do not believe that Dragon's words are enough to make this change, and at that time Arthur did not do anything yet to inspire any loyalty. So, apart from Merlin having a very fourteen-years-old-girl-crush on Arthur, what else can explain this change?..

Arthur is an insolent arrogant self-imposing bullying prat, and Merlin won't have any of this. He met idiots like him, back in Ealdor; it's not like you have to be royalty to be such an arse. Of course, in Ealdor it has been much easier. He could bully the bullies back and he could kick — and sometimes magic-kick — them to the dirt if they really asked for it. He cannot do this with Arthur, but he still won't have any of this. He has a plan.  
He'll just get himself sacked.

It won't be difficult. Maybe he won't even have to do anything. After the first evening of Merlin's service, Arthur is kinda already on the verge of throwing him out. The food is too cold for him, the fire in the hearth is too bright and some spilled wine is a tragedy worth whining for half an hour.  
"People of your village probably threw a feast upon your departure, being happy that such a worthless worker got off their necks!"  
"Worthless worker?" Merlin laughs breathless. "People of my village would send you to clean the pigs' stables till the end of your life if you were one of them and were throwing tantrums like this!"  
"Tantrums?!"  
And so on.

But even though Merlin is determined to get himself sacked, he is a bit bitter about it. Because just for a few moments after the Great Dragon roared the word "destiny" he felt the thrill. He has a destiny; he is like this for a reason...  
Yeah, sure!   
He does not want to admit it even to himself, but yes, he is bitter. So instead of going back to his tiny room behind Gaius' study and sulking for the rest of the evening, he slips out of the castle and dives into the torch-lit streets of Camelot, full of laughter and life and bargaining. It's nothing like Ealdor, where after sunset everyone was going home, to sit with the family a little and then to go to sleep. The day in Camelot lasts much longer, for there are always someone who wants to buy something, or to drink, or to get into a drunken fight. People are so different here, that Merlin can't help turning his head left and right to observe and absorb all these emotions, all the little stories that unfold around him. Everything is noisy and messy, and it washes over him and lightens his mood. To hell with what the Dragon says. For sure there is something good for Merlin in such a city as Camelot.  
Merlin keeps going, not really noticing where his path lies, until he notices that across the small market square someone's rooster runs away, causing mayhem. Its owner, a peasant who looks like a beer barrel with a mop of water plants on it, shrieks and tries to run for it, but stumbles over the beetroot cart. The beet falls to the dirt, it's owner sputters an impressive line of obscenities, the rooster starts to crow like it's a sunrise, not half an hour after sunset, and the whole street laughs at this free performance, until some guy darts ahead and catches the runaway bird.  
"That's the spirit!" the catcher praises the rooster, his voice is mocking serious. He steps up to handle the bird to the peasant and Merlin stumbles back, even though he is far enough: the guy is Arthur.  
What does his royal sissy ass even doing here?   
"Oh! Oh thank you!" stutters the peasant, clutching the roaster to his chest. "I just bought him, and he tore the net!"  
"I hope you did not buy him for the kitchen," notices Arthur with a smirk. "It would be sad if such a fighter ended up in a soup."  
The peasant spills some explanation, that no, he does not plan to make a soup of this rooster, not anytime soon... Arthur waves off the explanations, slaps the peasant's shoulder and wishes him and his rooster all the best. Merlin watches it all with mild amazement.

Arthur wears some simple clothes and no sword, and in the dim light he is almost unrecognizable, so people do not pay him any attention. They push him and berate him when he blocks the way, and Arthur gleefully snarls at them back, all arrogance is lost somewhere else. No demands to show respect to the prince, no threats to throw someone into dungeons. Merlin tugs the magic a little bit to hear him better. He does not cast a spell, merely asks the wind to bring to him the sound of one specific voice, and the air obeys; it is no problem for the air if you ask nicely.

It does not seem that Arthur goes somewhere in particular. He wanders across the streets, asks for prices of food and things, listens to potters' complaints about brazen foot-pads on the road to the best clay quarry in Camelot and helps to push a cart stuck in a pothole. He buys some apples from a blind crone on the corner. She looks like she's about to crumble like a rotted deck, and she's obviously happy to hear Arthur's voice.  
"I hoped you'd come," she wheezes, "I left the ripest ones for you!"  
"Thank you, Brigid," Arthur laughs, "how could I not come, your apples are the best in Camelot!  
They do not seem to be the best, to be honest. And since Arthur gives all of them away to the street kids they are probably not good at all, because according to the kitchen maids, Arthur actually likes apples and would have eaten them himself... If they were not so green and crooked.

They go and go, Arthur in the lead, Merlin slightly far behind him, in the shadows, until Arthur stumbles on a boy not older than five years old, crying and smearing dirt across his face.   
"Hey you," Arthur calls him and lowers himself to look the kid in the eyes, "you're going to flood the Camelot, you know that?"  
The child hiccups helplessly.  
"What's the sorrow? What's your name?"  
It takes a few minutes, but then the child replies:  
"I'm, I'm Hywel."  
"Hywel, son of?"  
"Rhys, the smith."  
"Well, Hywel, son of Rhys the smith, and what's the reason for this drain?"  
"I'm lost!"  
Arthur nods sternly:  
"Yep, that's not good, Hywel. How did it happen?"

It appears that the kid came to Camelot with horse sellers. Despite parents' forbiddance, he ran away to play hide-and-seek with the town's children. And hid too well.  
"So what do we do now?" Arthur sighs. "I don't think crying will help much. How about we try to find your parents, huh?"  
"I don't know where they are..."  
"Yeah, I don't know that either. But hey, maybe we can track them! Have you ever been on the hunt? Or tracked enemy soldiers?"  
Hywel looks at him with rounded eyes, his tears completely forgotten:  
"No?"  
"Well," Arthur leans closer, as to share a secret, "I was. Wanna try?"

He asks the child to remember the sounds and smells of the place where the horse sellers made their camp. At what side was the castle, at what side the sun was rising in the morning. How long was the walk to the closest water well and what was the picture on the sign above the entrance of the closest tavern. They go around in circles for some time and then start moving in the direction of one of the biggest markets of Camelot, the usual place to buy a horse.   
There is no chance that Arthur did not figure this outright in the beginning, but he still waits for the kid to deduct it on his own.

"Hywel, you brat! Where did you go, your mother is in rage!"  
"Uncle Bowen! I was just playing!"  
"Playing? We could not find you for three hours!"  
"I got lost..."  
Uncle Bowen answers with a slap on the boy's head.  
"Ow!"  
"I'll hear your 'ow' when your mother sees you! Off my eyes, you menace!"  
The child runs away a bit too cheerfully. Arthur notices that too:  
"I would expect less happiness from the perspective to get some berating from his mother..."  
"He's hungry," grumps the man. Merlin eyes him curiously. From the way he moves around Arthur, he gets a feeling that they have met before. "He knows that together with the scolding he will get some bread and cheese. This kid..."  
"A trouble?"  
"You have no idea, lad," the man huffs. Merlin raises an eyebrow. Lad? Who calls the prince of Camelot 'lad'? "He is Rhys' son. Rhys was one hell of a vagrant before he married, walked across all the five kingdoms. I'm afraid the child is just like him."  
"Then you better teach him some pathfinder tricks, you know," offers Arthur. Bowen looks at him askance:  
"What, so that he lost any fear?"  
Arthur is about to answer when a fine bay mare takes a step and stretches her head to chew his hair.  
"Hey, it's not your hay!" voices Arthur his indignation. Bowen bursts to laugh, and Merlin, clasping his mouth with his hand, laughs as well.  
"She's just annoyed that you haven't visited her for so long, lad," says Bowen. "How long has it been, a year or so?"  
Arthur gazes them both, the man and the mare. Then he turns around and pats the horse's neck.  
"I was busy," he mutters. "I cannot run to pet a horse every time you folks are in Camelot."  
"Why not? It's not like we are coming that often," notices Bowen. Arthur shrugs somewhat sullenly.  
"I have a lot to do, you know."  
"Right," Bowen nods. "Chasing girls, knocking the dust out of these brats of knights of yours..."  
"Something like that," huffs Arthur. "How's life, Bowen?"

The mare — her name is Ratula, — keeps demanding attention as Arthur and Bowen keep talking. Arthur pets her languidly, and at a certain point, Bowen passes him the scrapper. Arthur takes it without a word like it's the most usual thing for him to clean a horse that isn't even his. They speak of trade and life in the Bowen's village, of Bowen's family and Arthur's tournaments.   
"You know, you really should be coming to choose the horses for your stables yourself," notices Bowen.  
"I do have other things to do," informs him Arthur, and there is not so much of arrogance in his voice as tiredness. "And noblemen would not understand if I was hanging out with you people."  
"With us whom? With the loyal subjects of the kingdom, with me and Gareth and Marissa who rode with your father to the battles before he even thought of becoming a king?" Bowen speaks with sadness.  
"You don't have to tell this to me, Bowen," Arthur answers defensively. "Try telling this to the royal counselors."  
Bowen sighs.  
"The royal counselors did not help Uther to conquer this land. They cannot know that we were following him not because he was nobility, but because he did not care who's nobility and who's not. It pains me a great deal to see that Uther apparently forgot this as well."  
"Well, then perhaps you should have accepted the offer to become one of the royal counselors!" Arthur retorts with vehemence. "It would be nice to have at least someone who has the brass to tell us when we are being idiots."  
Merlin gapes.   
Bowen guffaws heartedly.  
"Would you really liked that, boy?"  
"Liked? No. But I'm not always an idiot. I know that..." Arthur trails off for a few moments. "I know that I and my father... We share some traits which are... Not good. We..."  
Arthur shakes his head, obviously struggling with the words.  
"I wouldn't like it," he says eventually. "But I think it's what is needed. What I need, if I ever want to be a decent king."  
Bowen clasps his shoulder with sympathy.  
"I saw what the responsibility was doing to Uther", he growls. "And I did not want this for myself. Nor for my family."  
Arthur shrugs helplessly. Bowen watches him with kind eyes.  
"I don't think your royal counselors would be so crossed if you were coming to the fair from time to time to visit me and Ratula. I remember your father at your age, you know. Years have changed him, but believe me, back then he did not do only the things he was supposed to be doing..."  
"At my age, he wasn't a king yet," huffs Arthur, and then adds very quietly, "He wasn't even the king's only son."

When Merlin understands that Arthur is heading back to the castle, he speeds his stride. Arthur walks back slowly, so it's easy to return before him. Lost in his thoughts, Merlin steps under the castle's arcs, and though it's late and he is tired, his legs as by themselves bring him not to the Gaius' tower, but across the square, to the wing where Arthur's chambers are.  
He enters the room pensively. The windows are open, the chilly night wind wavers the curtains. The embers in the hearth are almost dead.

Reluctantly Merlin takes a few pieces of the wood and places them in the fireplace. He eyes them without any real intention, but his magic makes the decision and several slow licks of fire spring to life.  
Merlin shakes his head and moves to the dinner table; there are several plates, hidden under the lids. The food is almost cold, and Merling indecisively taps the lids with his finger, pouring some magic into it.

Arthur returns when Merlin lights the candles. He seems surprised to find him in his chamber; he catches Merlin's eyes for a second but immediately turns away.  
"Thanks," says Arthur absentmindedly after Merlin lights the last candle. "That will be all for today."  
Merlin nods and stands still for a moment, musing on this polite and distant "thanks", when Arthur takes off his jacket and drops it on the floor.  
"Oi! Would you break if you put it in your dresser and not on the floor?!"  
Arthur turns his head and watches him like he cannot quite believe what he sees.  
"Really? Merlin, dare I remind you that you are my servant, and it is not your place to tell me what to do with my clothes!"  
"I am your servant and I spent two hours cleaning your room!"  
It was only ten minutes, actually, but there is no need for Arthur to know that.  
"It is your job to clean my room!"  
"And obviously it is your job to make my job harder!"  
"You know what?" hisses Arthur. "There are also some clean clothes from the laundry," he nods on the basket in the corner. "Put them in the dresser too. Accurately! I don't want anything to look rumpled!"  
"But you've told me that that will be all for today!"  
"Well, now I've changed my mind!"  
"Not much to change."  
"What?!"  
"And why do you need so many clothes anyway?"  
"It is not your place, Merlin, to lecture me..." starts Arthur his tirade, taking the lid from one of the plates and sniffing the hot steam, and vigorously stabbing the meat with a knife, "on how many clothes do I need, or where to place them, or..."  
And so on. 

They bicker and call each other names and Arthur invents new tasks for Merlin to do, silly pitiful tasks, like cleaning the dust off the carvings on the bedposts, because apparently there is so much dust that Arthur sneezes in the night. Merlin thinks about dusting some pepper on Arthur's underwear instead.  
Maybe tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow.

Maybe, just maybe, he'll stay around this prat for that long.

**Author's Note:**

> I am not a native English speaker, not to mention that I am far from being good in British English. Also, this is non-betaed. So any corrections and critical comments are much appreciated.


End file.
